Monday 8 November 2010

World leaders on sustainable buildings

Hilary Clinton is in town (Melbourne, Australia) this week speaking on many issues and had the opportunity to visit the award winning example of zero carbon emissions in the pixel building built by the Grocon group.
Although it has a roof garden it is only newly installed so the growth is less than lush but it is good to see the use of plants suitable to our very dry and almost dessert like conditions we can be exposed to in our drought years.
Most of the the roofs I have shown as examples in my eBook, Elegant Solutions for Addressing Climate Change are primarily for decoration like this beautiful wall green wall by French artist Patrick Blanc and examples of beauty as the enormous costs involved are still hugely prohibitive in them being adopted as the common place roofing we must all eventually have if we are to revert and indeed offset our burgeoning global populations.
So it is at least heartening to see these being highlighted by our world leaders and bringing them in to the media light that we may see the gradual filtering and cost reductions that can come about to make them affordable for all of us with large enough numbers.
In Germany, for instance, where it has been legislated, it is common place for the city to have green roofs and it is widely known it can reduce the temperature of a city in full summer by tremendous amounts thus not only making life more pleasant but cost effective too.

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